PROGRESS 2012: A stronger heartbeat

Commitment, planning bring life to city center

Kimberley Parker/Special to the Standard Times
Fiberglass sheep contestants are paraded from Celebration Bridge to Irving Street on the Concho River last May, kicking off the Miss Wool Parade. The event, highlighting San Angelo's historical ties to the sheep industry, was one of several initiated to attract more people downtown.

Cynthia Esparza/Standard-Times
Sealy Flats is one of the businesses that has brought nightlife back to downtown San Angelo.

Cynthia Esparza/Standard-Times
A crowd awaits the opening of the new Stephens Central Library in downtown San Angelo last April.

Allyson Kitts/Special to the Standard-Times
Hundreds enjoy the sounds of the Harmony Belles Chorus at the tree lighting ceremony in downtown San Angelo in December.

SAN ANGELO, Texas - As recently as 2007, downtown San Angelo was largely deserted during the evening and nighttime hours — even on weekends.

"At sundown you could take a 105 howitzer and shoot it down the street and not hit a bird, much less a car," said San Angelo native Kenneth Gunter, an ex-cable television magnate who owns and runs Miss Hattie's Café and Saloon with his wife, Brenda, president of local nonprofit Downtown San Angelo Inc.

When the Gunters opened the upscale restaurant in September 1998, it was only the second downtown business, along with the well-established Fuentes Café Downtown, that was open past 6 p.m.

John Fuentes, who opened Fuentes Café Downtown with his wife, Lisa, in November 1984, recalled that he felt like the last man standing in his neck of the downtown woods when Hemphill-Wells and J.C. Penney relocated to the city's outskirts a few months after the restaurant's grand opening.

"It kind of affected a lot of the businesses, but fortunately we were able to survive and we did well," said Fuentes, whose restaurant sits at what is now one of the busiest downtown intersections, where Beauregard Avenue turns from East to West and Chadbourne Street changes from North to South. By 1989 the Fuenteses' profit margin had grown enough to allow them to purchase an adjacent building and add a second dining room.

As happened in many American cities, downtown San Angelo was largely abandoned in the decades following World War II when urban development efforts shunned older buildings in favor of new construction and urban sprawl.

"There was an era after World War II, in the 1960s — and, to some degree, the 1970s — where the country was ready to build a new America," said Shawn Lewis, director of the city's community and economic development department, of the national phenomenon.

"In general, people didn't appreciate historic architecture and so it was a very precarious time for older downtowns. It wasn't just that we wanted everything new and shiny, it also meant abandonment of older areas of the city, with a move to the edges of the community, which is what we saw, to some degree, happen here."

Downtown San Angelo was never pronounced dead — with a retail strip along East Concho Avenue, City Hall offices and Shannon Hospital, it remained a retail destination and one of the city's largest employment hubs. But it was stagnant until well into the 2000s when a dedicated and passionate group of property owners, business people, historic preservationists and a multitude of other stakeholders, including the city of San Angelo, coalesced and began working together in earnest to revive the historic district.

THE BEGINNING

That cooperative effort resulted in San Angelo's acceptance into the Texas Historic Commission's Main Street Program in 2004, which city and downtown development officials say provided the necessary organization and framework — and modest cash flow — to launch a revitalization effort.

The Main Street program, which began in 1981, "helps Texas cities revitalize their historic downtowns and neighborhood commercial districts by utilizing preservation and economic development strategies," according to the commission's website.

Entry into the program required the city of San Angelo to commit to giving $50,000 a year for five years to Downtown San Angelo Inc., a nonprofit organization formed the same year by a group of 35 downtown property owners and business people interested in revitalizing the area. It also required the organization to raise $50,000 in private money annually.

"With that you all of a sudden had the city saying, 'We think it's important enough, we're investing some money,' and you had other private citizens who said 'We think it's important, we're going to invest some money in that,' " said Brenda Gunter, president of Downtown San Angelo. "And so with San Angelo becoming a Main Street City, all of a sudden there were a lot of people energized in terms of figuring out what we needed to do to bring back historic downtown."

That also was the year San Angelo voters approved a half-cent sales tax, a portion of which is allocated to economic development efforts.

The snowball has been rolling along ever since, encountering some plateaus along the way, but remaining in motion and getting larger every year.

Since 2005, the total amount of public and private dollars that have been invested in the downtown area has grown from less than $1 million a year to more than $55 million through the third quarter of last year.

Those dollars have gone to things like the construction of the San Angelo Museum of Fine Arts and the YMCA and the renovations of the City Hall, Myers Drug and the old Hemphill-Wells building that now houses Stephens Central Library. It also includes the purchase and renovation of other downtown buildings by private business people that are now bars, clubs, art galleries and retail establishments.

Downtown San Angelo has grown from a few dozen founding members to more than 350 business and individual members.

Brenda Gunter, who was involved in the founding of the organization, but didn't join the board of directors until 2005, said that in the beginning people told her downtown was a lost cause, that it was impossible to revive such a neglected area.

People told Rod Bridgeman the same thing when he bought the vacant building on South Oakes Street he turned into Sealy Flats Blues Inn in 1998.

"When we bought this building, people thought downtown was dead and would never come back," said Bridgeman, who purchased the adjacent building and opened Sealy Flats Diner in 2009.

Brenda Gunter estimates that 30 percent of the buildings downtown are still vacant or under renovation, but a lot has still been done in a short amount of time. And the overwhelmingly positive public response to what has happened cannot be overstated, she said.

"The impact has been huge," she said. "It hasn't taken a whole lot of new businesses to get people really excited about how much potential there is. And that's what's exciting about it, because you look at the huge opportunity. If today we're here and we've done all this, imagine the potential."

NIGHTLIFE COMES OUT

The single most visible transformation that has occurred downtown since 2005 has been the development of a robust nightlife.

In the past five years, a handful of new bars have opened along South Chadbourne Street and in other areas of downtown, most occupying previously vacant buildings.

While retail sales tax revenue has exhibited marked growth, even though a large portion of downtown entities are nonprofits, including churches, or government organizations that don't sell goods or pay taxes, the amount of mixed beverage tax collected in the downtown area since 2005 has exploded.

In 2007 and 2008, the total mixed beverage tax collected in the Central Business District — the area north of the river between South Randolph and Magdalen streets and south of East Harris Avenue — grew 122 percent and 126 percent, respectively, from the previous years.

Thanks to Downtown San Angelo, there has also been a spike in downtown evening activities like outdoor movies and the monthly ArtWalk, which takes place on the third Thursday of each month.

In the decades straddling the turn of the century, the after-hours and business activity vibe of downtown was in stark contrast to what has developed in the past few years.

"Even in 1998 and really 2003 or (200)4 what you still had was only John Fuentes and Miss Hattie's restaurant open at night, so what existed downtown was truly a retail business," Brenda Gunter said.

Fuentes said "it all began" when Fat Boss's Pub opened across the street in 2007.

It was the first of several bars that would open along South Chadbourne between Beauregard and Concho avenues in the coming years.

Like Gunter and Bridgeman, San Angelo native John Castillo, co-owner of Fat Boss's, said people warned him against opening a business downtown. But he had a feeling it would work.

"They were like, 'John, everything is going to the Loop' and I was like 'I don't really care, I think it's going to happen,'" said Castillo, noting that when they first opened the area was completely "dead" at night after Fuentes Café closed. "I got told that all the time, but like I said, I had a hunch."

Shortly after Fat Boss's opened (Castillo said there were lines out the door for the first two months), Fuentes said they decided to extend their operating hours on weekends, and have since seen revenues from alcohol sales more than double, as well as an increase in their gross sales.

"There's a lot of money being invested downtown and we want to be part of that growth," Fuentes said. "It's been a struggle but it's starting to shift from retail to entertainment."

For officials, the growth in the mixed beverage tax that has come with the flourishing bar scene is good news, but — when compared to retail sales tax — is an indicator that the downtown area needs more retail development, which is still largely concentrated in the strip along East Concho Avenue.

"We're seeing a shift from retail sales tax to an increase in mixed beverage tax, so we're not losing ground, we're shifting the sales tax and that's of concern," said Genora Young, executive director of Downtown San Angelo. "It means the bar business is really good and it means we would like to recruit more retail in the downtown area to keep foot traffic moving during the day and the dollars circulating in retail during the day."

Young said development of the arts downtown has been crucial — and will be crucial — to downtown revitalization.

MOVING FORWARD

Stakeholders are fiercely proud of downtown and vastly optimistic about the future, but acknowledge that there is still a long way to go.

Other than physical revitalization and development, including in the downtown area along the Concho River, one of the main goals is simply getting more people to come downtown. There are a plethora of different ideas on the best way to go about it.

For many, including Fort Concho officials and historic preservationists, it's the continued development of "heritage tourism," which focuses on cultural activities that tell the city's agricultural and military history. For the city, it's about offering tax abatements and incentives, recruiting businesses and development opportunities and finding ways to make the area more accessible and attractive.

In 2006, the city created the Tax Increment Reinvestment Zone to collect tax revenue for beautification projects along the historic commercial corridor along Chadbourne Street.

Since the revitalization movement kicked off in 2004, the city of San Angelo has done a lot to become more business friendly, making a wholesale change in the way it deals with business owners.

In October 2010, the council approved a measure to reorganize and streamline the city's economic development services, bringing them all under one roof.

Having a one-stop shop has made it easier for business owners to obtain permits and inquire about economic incentives. The physical embodiment of the "Business Resource Center" will be located in the old Coca Cola warehouse building on North Chadbourne Street, which the city purchased last year and is currently renovating.

Bridgeman said when he approached the city permitting department about renovating the historic building on South Oakes Street, city staff "laughed and said 'You're crazy.' "

"The city has dramatically changed since then," said Bridgeman, "I'm very, very proud of San Angelo city government. I think they have been the lead on this."

All parties involved in the revitalization movement say things would not have come as far if it weren't for an organized, cooperative effort — especially the involvement of the city, even though much of the investment has been private.

"It certainly helped to have former mayors, current mayors, former council members, current council members and staff members all kind of singing the same song," said Assistant City Manager Elizabeth Grindstaff, whose predecessor helped write San Angelo's application for the Main Street Program. "That helped get the private sector to further invest. Could it have happened one without the other? Maybe, but I don't think to the success that we've seen."

For Fuentes and bar owners, success will require developing a robust downtown shuttle system from Goodfellow Air Force Base and Angelo State University. For Castillo, it's about more development: Downtown living and more restaurants for people to go to after the bars close.

"The more people that come to downtown, the better it is for me," he said.

For Bridgeman, the two biggest hurdles to downtown development are getting downtown merchants to stay open on Sundays, as well as getting a four- or five-star hotel to open in the area.

"The future of downtown is tourism and that tourism will not work unless stores are open on Sunday," he said.

The largest, overarching barrier to success is, of course, lack of money.

Business people may still be unwilling to invest the large amount of time, sweat and capital it takes to purchase an old building and bring it up to code, but officials think the revitalization snowball effect and unique character of downtown will eventually overthrow that hesitation.

"Obviously it's kind of easy to say, 'Well, what we want is a lot of people buying buildings and putting businesses downtown, but always remember — when you're an organization like we are — we own nothing, lots of different people own buildings," Brenda Gunter said. "So what you really try to do and what our focus was, because we had few funds really, was to use those funds to promote and excite people about the potential business opportunities downtown."

Less problematic for the development of smaller buildings, lack of willing investors or business people has perhaps been the biggest impediment in getting people to buy larger buildings and turn them into condos or apartments. Spurring downtown residential development and living is an elusive goal many other Texas cities have struggled to achieve and is one officials say San Angelo will also try to tackle.

A UNIFIED PLAN

One effort afoot intended to bring people's disparate visions of downtown development together, as well as sniff out potential investment dollars, is being undertaken by the Downtown Development Commission, a seven-member body the council created in September 2010 that is charged with the "compilation and implementation" of a downtown development master plan.

The plan, which the commission will produce and took public comment on in January, is an assemblage of the half dozen or so downtown and river corridor development visions that have been crafted over the last 15 years.

"There's a problem with trying to get everyone moving in the same direction and so this consolidation of the plans, which various groups worked on over those 10 or 15 years, really helps us to kind of coalesce a unified vision for downtown that everyone can be behind," Lewis said.

"One of the biggest drawbacks for our downtown, like many, is that you have different groups wanting downtown to go in different directions, so until we can have a more unified vision, downtown revitalization could be difficult."

The commission also is expected to hire a "master developer" later this year — a third party entity — to assist the city in luring private investment in the downtown and river areas.

San Angelo Mayor Alvin New, a prominent local businessman, said he thinks hiring a master developer is "the way to go in getting everyone's interest funneled into one effort."

"When that person gets here, a lot of good things will be in place," New said.

Bridgeman and other downtown business owners say they aren't concerned about disagreement over the finer points as things move forward.

"They're nothing more than small details," Bridgeman said. "We all want the same thing."

And no one seems to disagree that downtown revitalization should be part of the city's economic development strategy or that it is key to the city's overall economic success.

Lewis of the city's community and economic development department said there are a multitude of reasons the city has developed an intense interest in revitalizing downtown, the primary or overarching one being that it is a gauge of the city's overall economic health and well-being.

"Whether we're trying to recruit other businesses or we're trying to entice a new doctor to Shannon or whatever it is, downtown is an indicator of the quality of your city, so we consider it vital to revitalize and maintain," Lewis said.

While the San Angelo Chamber of Commerce focuses on economic development on a citywide basis, Chamber President Phil Neighbors said downtown is "disproportionately" important to the city's economic success.

"It's easy to look around the state and see communities where downtowns have deteriorated and that is often the bellwether for what's going to happen for the entire community over the next decade," Neighbors said.

THE FIRST MILESTONE

Downtown retail would have a lot farther to go if it weren't for one major — if lesser known — milestone in the evolution of downtown.

In the mid-1970s, about a decade before Fuentes Café Downtown opened, Kenneth Gunter bought a row of a dozen vacant or dilapidated buildings downtown along East Concho Avenue that now house retail staples like J. Wilde's Boutique and Legend Jeweler's.

Gunter said the city of San Angelo was planning to tear down the buildings.

Gunter, 78, who grew up in a house on West Concho Avenue, said his business move was unassuming, even selfishly motivated. His intention was not to catalyze the development of a lone downtown retail hub, or — as it appeared to do in hindsight — prevent downtown area from hitting rock bottom in terms of business activity and building vacancy.

But that's seemingly what it did.

"When I did that, I did that not particularly for historic preservation reasons but for personal satisfaction," Gunter said, describing the area at that time as "deadbeat."

It turned out to be a catalyst and springboard for downtown retail development.

"It basically showed people that you could take an old building, recreate, preserve it, register it and run a business out of it, that there was a reason to own those buildings," said Gunter's wife Brenda, who married Kenneth in 1998 and moved to San Angelo in 1999 after leaving her job as president of Calvin Klein Collections in New York City.

Young said there would likely be "no story to tell" about downtown revitalization if the buildings along East Concho Avenue hadn't been saved.

"If that had happened the economic development dynamics of this community would have been drastically changed from what we've seen today because there would have been no preservation of history there except for (Fort Concho)," Young said, noting that East Concho was the city's first street. "And while that's a huge contribution, to lose your retail around that Fort, it would have been much harder for the Fort to market (itself)."